May 28, 2011

Fact Is Better: Pteros and Bumbles

One night, I went outside on my balcony to fix my Tibetan prayer flags which had gotten tangled up after a particularly bad night of wind. It was around 6:30pm.

At 7:30pm, when I was headed back outside to eat dinner, there were forty-seven ginormous bumble bees swarming around on that very same balcony. Where they came from or where they were going, didn’t make a difference to me. I just really didn’t want them there, buzzing and diving around like the little homicidal maniacs I know them to be.

Instead of eating dinner, I ended up standing at my door mesmerized and physically sickened by their presence in my safely guarded world. I didn’t appreciate that they had suddenly set-up shop on MY balcony on which I like to eat my dinner on. Those bee-tches.

I ran to my computer and began to research bee exterminators and keepers in the state to see if someone could come and take care of this problem (because I know for a fact that bees are like the mafia, if I murdered them then their bee relatives would find out and come and seek revenge on me).

I should have known, though, that anyone crazy enough to deal with bees head-on was, well, probably just crazy in general.

*the phone rings –it’s a number I don’t know, so I answer it hesitantly.*Me: “Hello?”Dave the Bee King: “Did you just click enter?!”Me: “ . . . what?”Dave the Bee King: “ON THE INERNET. Did you just click ‘Enter’ on the form you submitted?”Me: “I did.”Dave the Bee King: “YES! I’M AWESOME. How’s that for speedy response time, eh?! EH?! So you have a bee problem, I see.”Me: “I do. My entire balcony is covered in them.”Dave the Bee King: “What kind of bees are they?Me: “I’m gonna be honest, here: I’m not really a bee expert, if you know what I mean. But they’re relatively enormous. They’re grapefruit sized and sound like jet engines.”Dave the Bee King: “So, you don’t actually know if they’re bees. They could be pterodactyls.”Me: “. . . yes, they could be pterodactyls.”Dave the Bee King: “Okay, if they ARE pterodactyls, you’ve got a bigger problem than you realize. I’m not sure that I’m going to be able to help you out in that instance, because pterodactyls are a lot fucking harder to kill than bees. Now, do they sound like buzz-buzz-CAW-CAW-CA – wait that sounds more like a crow. I don’t really know what a pterodactyl sounds like, but you get the point.”Me: “ . . .”Dave the Bee King: “Onwards and upwards. Now, did you spill something on your balcony that would make them – the bees, not the pterodactyls - be attracted to it?”Me: “No. I haven’t been able to go out there at all. That’s the problem.”Dave the Bee King: “So you and your girlfriends didn’t go out there, giggle a little, talk about boys, get shit-faced on some red wine and spill it all over the place? Didn’t get wild one night with a bottle of tequila? Didn’t lose yourself in the bottom of a bottle of whiskey?””Me: “No. But I’d like to do all of those things.”Dave the Bee King: “Hell, wouldn’t we all.”